Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

“I don’t know,” Frank said, “but at least there hasn’t been any shooting so far.”

  They reached the rocks, ducked among them, and came out on the other side to see Lucy and Maureen cringing back against one of the boulders and clinging to each other. A few yards away, a man’s body lay facedown on the sand, rising as the waves came in, then sinking as they went back out.

  The man wore the blue uniform of one of the ship’s officers. Frank wasn’t particularly surprised to see the corpse. Not all the bodies would float in to shore, but he’d been certain that some of them would.

  “Ladies, go on back to the others,” he told Lucy and Maureen. “Pete and I will tend to this.”

  “Is…is he dead?” Lucy asked.

  Frank looked at how the body was already beginning to bloat and nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so.”

  “How terrible,” Maureen muttered.

  She and Lucy started back up the beach. Frank handed his rifle to Conway, went over to the corpse, and reached down to grab hold of the uniform jacket and haul the body completely out of the water. He rolled the man onto his back.

  The bloating distorted the man’s features, and fish had been at him, too. Frank was still able to recognize the first mate from the Montclair. He had heard the man’s name but was unable to recall it, and he felt bad about that. Nobody ought to die without someone knowing who he was. Unfortunately, that was often the case.

  “Frank…” Conway said.

  Frank looked up. Conway was staring along the beach with a bleak expression on his face. Frank followed the direction of the young man’s gaze and saw three more corpses bobbing in the water just offshore. As he watched, the waves brought those bodies in and deposited them partially on the sand as well.

  “This fella might’ve been the first, but I knew he wouldn’t be the last,” Frank said.

  By midday, in fact, a dozen more bodies had washed ashore, including those of Captain Rudolph Hoffman, Gertrude Nevins, and Constance Wilson. It was a horrible thing for the young women to see the bodies of their former companions, Frank thought, but at least they had the certainty of knowing that Gertrude and Constance were gone. It would have been harder for them to leave this place if they had harbored even the faintest hope that the two young women might still be alive.

  And leaving was exactly what Frank had in mind—the sooner, the better. Winter was making its inexorable way down from the Arctic Circle, and if they didn’t reach some sort of haven before it arrived in its full fury, they wouldn’t stand a chance. He was willing to let them have this day to rest and recover from the ordeal, but no longer.

  Frank and Conway explored into the trees and found a ravine about a quarter of a mile inland. They took the bodies there and lowered them into the defile, then rolled rocks down on top of them. It was a poor excuse for a burial but the best they could do under the circumstances. If more bodies washed ashore, they could bring them here later.

  When they returned to the beach, Frank gathered everyone around and told them what he and Conway had done. Some of the women weeped for Gertrude and Constance. Frank let them grieve for a while, then said, “Everyone needs to get a good night’s sleep tonight, because we’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

  Neville looked up in surprise. “Leaving? But we have wood here for the fire and plenty of supplies.”

  “We don’t have enough supplies to last until next spring,” Frank said. “We don’t have a shelter to protect us during the winter, either.”

  “Maybe we could build a cabin,” one of the men suggested. “We have axes, and there are plenty of trees. There are wild animals around here, too. You said you saw a bear yesterday. We could hunt for fresh meat.”

  Frank nodded. “All those things are true. But I still think our chances for survival are better if we make it to Skagway or some other settlement.”

  “Do you have any idea how far we are from Skagway?” Fiona asked.

  “Nope.” Frank waved a hand toward the sea. “That may be Glacier Bay out there. If it is, we can follow the shoreline north along the inlet that leads to Skagway. It may not be more than fifty or sixty miles to the settlement.”

  “You want us to walk fifty or sixty miles, in cold weather like this?” Marie asked, sounding like she could hardly believe it.

  Frank smiled. “It’s liable to get a lot colder before it gets warmer again, Miss Boulieu. Anyway, we have a couple of horses. You ladies can take turns riding, so you won’t have to walk the whole way.”

  “I think Frank’s right,” Fiona said. “Besides, have you forgotten that there are husbands waiting for you once you get to Whitehorse?”

  “We’re still going to Whitehorse?” Meg asked.

  “Why not? If we can make it to Skagway, we can buy more supplies and carry on just as we planned. We’ve just been delayed a little, that’s all.”

  “And there are two less of us,” Jessica pointed out.

  “And that’s a shame, but the rest of us are still alive.” Fiona’s hoarse voice took on a determined tone as she went on. “I don’t intend to give up just because we’ve had some bad luck along the way.”

  Bad luck was putting it mildly, Frank thought, but he agreed with the sentiment Fiona expressed. He didn’t believe in giving up. If he did, he would have been dead a long time ago.

  Anyway, he knew more about the wilderness than any of the others, and he intended to see to it that they got out of this mess, whether they liked it or not.

  By the next morning, the rest of the group had come around to Frank’s way of thinking. They didn’t want to try to spend the winter on this bleak, isolated beach.

  Several more bodies had washed up during the night. Frank and Conway carried them to the ravine and laid them to rest as best they could, then returned to the camp. Frank had stripped the jackets off a number of the corpses, and he used them to make packs for carrying supplies. The women found that distasteful but went along with it. The only supplies they could take with them were what they were able to carry.

  Everyone shrugged into their packs, and then the group strung out along the beach and headed north. Frank took the lead, with Dog bounding on out ahead of him. No one was riding at the moment. Frank wanted to save the horses for when their strength was really needed. He put Conway and Neville at the back of the line to bring up the rear and keep an eye on things. The other three cheechakos were spaced out among the women to lend them a hand if necessary.

  A cold wind blew in Frank’s face and sent thick gray clouds scudding through the sky. It was only a matter of time before the first real blizzard of the season came roaring down out of the north, Frank knew. They were in a race against that blizzard, and the stakes were their lives.

  He wanted to make at least five miles a day, preferably more. If they could cover ten miles each day, he felt sure they could reach Skagway in less than a week. That gave them an outside chance of making it while the relatively good weather held.

  The first morning went well, but then the women began to flag. They had to take turns riding, and even with that, the pace slowed slightly. By nightfall, Frank wasn’t sure how much ground they had covered. But it was a start, and he was going to remain optimistic as long as he could.

  The next day, the going was harder. The trees came right down to the edge of the water in places, forcing everyone to wind among the pines rather than striding along the open sand. In other places, boulders blocked the beach and made them go inland as well. Frank kept everyone moving, though, that day and the next and the next.

  He felt sure they were more than halfway to Skagway by now. When he looked out across the water, he could see low, tree-covered hills in the distance, proof that they were tramping along beside an inlet now, not Glacier Bay. Every instinct Frank possessed told him that they were heading in the right direction. It was just a matter of time before they sighted the smoke from Skagway.

  So far, though, they hadn’t seen a single sign of human habitation. Frank had thought t
hey might come across a trapper’s cabin, or some sourdough’s gold claim. Not along this coast, obviously.

  On the fifth day after leaving the camp where they had come ashore, the women were barely able to stagger along. Conway and the other cheechakos were pretty worn out, too. Frank began to consider calling a halt and giving them a day to rest. He squinted at the gray sky. Was there snow up there? He couldn’t tell, but he felt a tingle of unease along his spine. Would taking a day to rest just doom them when they were practically at their destination?

  He didn’t have much choice in the matter. Some of the women collapsed, dropping off their feet and unable to get up again. Frank said, “All right, unsling your packs. We’ll stop here for a while.”

  Maybe after an hour or two, they could go on, he thought. It was worth a try.

  All of the women except Meg Goodwin slumped to the ground. Meg had been a real trouper. She had to be as worn out as the others, but she had kept on as if she could go all day. She came over to Frank now and said, “Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Devereaux and the other girls are really tired.”

  “And you’re not?” he asked her with a smile.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I grew up on a farm and did most of the plowing from the time I was ten years old. I must have walked thousands of miles behind an old mule. This…” She gestured toward the beach. “This is nothing.”

  “Farm girl, eh?”

  “That’s right. So I figured being a sourdough’s wife wouldn’t be much harder.”

  “You might be right about that.” Frank nodded toward the north. “I was thinking about scouting on ahead with Dog. You want to come with us?”

  Meg’s quirky smile lit up her face. “I’d like that.”

  Frank went over to Conway and said, “Miss Goodwin and I are going to scout on up the beach a ways. You mind staying here and keeping an eye on things?”

  “Nope, that’s fine,” the young man replied. He glanced at Jessica Harpe, and Frank figured Conway planned on spending the break talking to the curvy little brunette. If Fiona was able to follow through on her plan and take the women to Whitehorse, Conway was liable to be disappointed when he had to say good-bye to Jessica and let her travel on to the man who had paid to have her brought up here to marry him. But Frank couldn’t do anything about that. It was just Conway’s bad luck.

  He and Meg set off up the beach. Dog ran ahead of them, darting into the woods at times and then running back out onto the sand. As they walked, Meg talked about her life on her family’s farm back in Ohio.

  “What about you, Mr. Morgan?” she asked after a while. “You must have had a very interesting life, what with being a gunfighter and all.”

  “A lot of hard, lonely trails,” Frank said. “That’s what most of it has been.”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “A couple of times.”

  Meg frowned. “What happened?”

  “I lost them both,” Frank said.

  She put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. Although I guess I should have known that I would, with questions like that.”

  “It’s all right,” Frank told her. “Life goes on and time passes, and after a while, if you’re lucky you’re left with more good memories than bad ones.”

  “What about children?”

  Frank had to grin. “I’ve got a boy. Conrad. He had some trouble along the way, but he grew into a fine man.” He grew sober again as he thought about what had happened in Conrad’s life in recent months. “Then he had some more trouble. But he’ll come through it all right. He’s strong.”

  “Like his father,” Meg said. Her hand still rested on Frank’s arm.

  He frowned suddenly as he realized how easy it was to talk to this woman. But she was young, he reminded himself. His son’s age, or thereabouts, which meant he was old enough to be her father. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed like there was quite as big a difference between him and Fiona…

  He didn’t have time to ponder on those troubling thoughts, because at that moment, somewhere behind them, the roar of gunshots suddenly filled the cold air.

  Chapter 16

  Frank whirled toward the sound and saw to his surprise that he and Meg had walked so far along the beach the others were now out of sight. The shots were definitely coming from that direction, though. He broke into a run along the hard-packed sand, calling over his shoulder to Meg, “Stay here!”

  “No!” she said as she hustled after him. “You may need my help!”

  Frank knew there was no time to argue with her. He wanted to get back to the rest of the survivors as fast as he could. It was possible that they had just spotted a bear or a moose and were blazing away at it, but he had a bad feeling that this was something worse.

  A point of land jutted out into the water ahead of them. Frank and Meg had walked around it without him really noticing it. That point cut off the view down the beach.

  Instinct suddenly send Frank veering toward the trees on the point. “Follow me!” he called to Meg. He didn’t want to go charging blindly around there until he knew what the situation was. He whistled Dog back beside him, too.

  They slowed as they reached the trees. The shooting stopped, and an ominous silence fell over the beach. Frank crouched and held the Winchester at the ready as he weaved his way through the trunks. The thick carpet of decaying pine needles muffled his footsteps. Meg started to say something, but Frank made a curt gesture that silenced her. He didn’t want to give away their presence.

  As they neared the far edge of the trees, he went to his belly and motioned for Meg to do likewise. They crawled forward until they could look along the beach and see what was happening.

  Meg’s breath hissed between her teeth in surprise. Frank didn’t make a sound, but his jaw tightened. He watched as eight roughly dressed, heavily armed hardcases rounded up Fiona and the nine remaining young women. Conway, Neville, and the other three cheechakos were sprawled limply on the sand. Frank saw blood staining their clothes, and none of them moved.

  “My God,” Meg whispered. “Oh, Frank—”

  “Shhh.”

  She cast an anguished look over at him. “But we have to help them!”

  “If we do anything to let those varmints know we’re here, they’ll just kill me and take you prisoner, too,” Frank whispered, leaning over to put his mouth close to her ear. “The only way we can help them is by waiting for a better chance.”

  “But you’re a gunfighter—”

  “And there would be eight to one odds against me,” he said. “I’d get half of them, maybe more, but they’d get me, too.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Meg, but we have to bide our time.”

  She bit her lip as she thought about what he’d said. Then she nodded. “What do you think happened?” she asked as the men started forcing their prisoners into the trees at gunpoint. The hardcases had picked up all the packs of supplies and were carrying them as well.

  “Those hombres ambushed our bunch. Conway and the other men put up a fight, but they didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Who are those men?”

  “Outlaws, most likely.” Frank had been studying the men. They wore fur coats and a mixture of headgear ranging from Stetsons to derbies to fur caps. Each man carried a rifle, and when their coats hung open, he saw holstered six-guns on each man as well, not to mention knives and a couple of hatchets.

  “Did they do it to steal our supplies?”

  “I’m sure that’s part of it.”

  “Then why are they taking Mrs. Devereaux and the other—Oh. Oh, no.”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, they either plan to keep the girls for themselves or maybe sell them. Maybe both, eventually. Sorry to be so plainspoken about it.”

  “This is no time for worrying about propriety,” Meg said. “What are we going to do?”

  “Wait until they’re gone, then check on Conway and the other men to see if any of them are still a
live. Then we’ll figure out some way of getting the prisoners away from those no-good scoundrels.”

  “Why don’t you just call them no-good bastards instead? That’s what they are.”

  Frank couldn’t dispute that. He smiled tightly and went on. “Even if we can free the prisoners, we’ll have to do something to keep those men from coming after us. Otherwise we’re liable to be in pretty much the same fix we are now.”

  “You mean to kill them?”

  “They can’t come after us if they’re dead,” Frank said.

  Meg nodded and said, “All right. I’ll help you. Just tell me what to do.”

  Frank motioned for her to be quiet again. He listened intently and heard hoofbeats in the distance. The outlaws had horses with them, and now they were riding away with their prisoners. Frank listened as the hoofbeats faded.

  “Come on,” he said as he got to his feet.

  With Dog following them, he and Meg hurried out of the trees and across the sand toward the bodies of Conway and the other men. Frank reached Neville first and saw that the little New Yorker was shot at least three times through the body. He grimaced in regret. Although there had been friction between the two of them at first, some mutual respect had developed, too.

  The other three cheechakos were dead. Frank came to Conway, who lay facedown in a pool of blood. Frank rolled the young man onto his back, expecting to find a bullet hole in the middle of Conway’s face.

  Instead he saw a deep gash on the side of Conway’s forehead with blood still seeping from it. But Conway was breathing, Frank realized. Head wounds always bled like crazy, but from the looks of it, the slug had glanced off Conway’s skull, knocking him out but not killing him. The outlaws must have seen all that blood and assumed that he was a goner, though.

  “Pete’s alive!” Frank called.

  Meg exclaimed in surprise and rushed over to him, dropping to her knees beside Conway. “What can I do?”

  “Rip a piece of cloth off your dress and use it to try to stop that bleeding from his head. Hold it on there tight. Dog and I will go have a look around.”